test

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Halloween Poetry Bus Poem - Deadly Hold



As the prompt is a Halloween theme, I tried to think of something scary.  During the week, I read a piece about the social condition of Ireland post the 'Celtic Tiger', so I figured that's pretty scary and would warrant inclusion.  Posting early as weekend is a bit hectic!



Deadly Hold

The dark dank hold,
that cuts out light,
and children’s eyes that mourn,
like angel sirens,
humming low,
beneath the ghoulish mound,
that sought to kick the weak and lame,
and seeped through rise and fall of day,
with man’s ignorance of place,
of self,
and all the things,
that stupid loss prevails.
It wasn’t vampire that led us here,
nor simple greed alone,
for that of course,
is never enough,
to roar the why of IGNORAMUS.
It formed the flow right down the cheek,
invisible tears of souls,
pumped and geared,
raved up in mass to monster beat,
of evil shit upon the street,
in comfortable suburban zones,
or the elegant elite,
at some high class treat,
with Mommy & Daddy’s drinks display,
that always came to save the day,
an easy fix to set our children free,
to live life in the futile shade,
playing the ‘ignorant game’.
The one that led us all astray,
the pimp that pumped our deadly ride,
plummeting our own decay,
and laughs loudly now today,
the dark dank deadly hold,
that cuts out light,
and children’s eyes that mourn,
like angel sirens,
humming low,
seeped through wounds,
of good auld Tiger Ireland.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Remembering Joan O Flynn

The launch of 'Joan's Book' last week was a great success.  The GAA hall in Lucan was filled to capacity with Joan's family and her many friends, including yours truely.

It was a wonderful evening, not just because it was a fine tribute to a fantastic woman, but because it launched an equally fantastic book.  The book which is a combination of Joan's short stories, poems, paintings, photographs from her life along with the bones of an autobiography,(written by the good lady herself) allows those that knew her, revisit again, her talent, wit, and her over abundance of love for creativity, life, family and friends.

For anyone that missed out on the launch, copies of Joan's Book are available at Abtree Bookshop, Lynch’s , Eurospar and anywhere that you would buy the Lucan newsletter.

It is also available in the book shop in Naas and will hopefully be soon available from Easons & Amazon.
 

Below is a short video compiled by the family of our late friend Joan O Flynn.  You will also see other videos here, some of the launch night and one of Joan's story,'Common Market' from the Anthology 'Caught in Amber' by Lucan Writers


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIVsJ9V8bI

Thought for the Weekend - Emily Dickinson


Sorry for being so late with this!  I kinda feel we all need a bit of hope heading into the darker afternoons ahead from this weekend. 

But we gain an extra hour! Use it doing something that makes you smile, we don't do enough of that.  It helps you live longer!


"....Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune with the words, and never stops at all."


- Emily Dickinson

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Room by Emma Donoghue - Book Club


Room by Emma Donoghue will be reviewed next week by a Book Club that has been mad enough to allow 120 Socks to be a member.

The book is well worth a read, and I look forward to posting feedback from our Book Club when we get together.  But in the interim, here is one of the reams of articles written about this book, which was incidentally short-listed this year for the Booker Prize. Also of note is that Emma Donoghue is Irish, so all in all it is well worth supporting.!

'The universe of Donoghue's docu-novel is a garden shed that is home to five-year-old Jack, the storyteller, and his devoted Ma, abducted at 18, and who is now fading in and out of black depression. There's a tyrannical occasional visitor, Old Nick, on whom the pair depend for food, light and heat -- for life itself. He calls usually when Jack is tucked into his bed in the wardrobe.  In no time, this room becomes a hellish world for the reader, as well as for Jack and Ma. Life revolves around finding ways of making the days pass. You play games; word games, mostly. You exercise. Today. Again tomorrow. And tomorrow, like yesterday.
Like John Boyne's Bruno in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, he knows more than he understands. Jack does not fit into the accepted moulds of boyhood. Since he does not share the assumptions that help make sense of the world, a chasm yawns between him and 'Outside'.
The novel is as much about empathising with suffering at the extreme of the spectrum as about our society's expectations.  Donoghue's great strength - apart from her storytelling gift - is her emotional intelligence.  We get enough information to feel uncomfortable - and therefore to question our assumptions about how family life ought to be; and to know that life will always be an unequal struggle.'

Sunday, October 24, 2010

On The Bus! - Simple Silent Din


Poetry Bus Theme - Meetings.


This was a brilliant theme this week and so the old brain was working overtime trying to work out how I would use this best. 



Then I came across a photograph in a book called 'Beyond the Moment - Irish Photojournalism in Our Time'.  It was of a little girl sitting by a 'Lost Property' sign at a campaign run by the charity Bardandos (p103 for anyone that has it, and not the image to the left by the way). 

Anyway, this gave me the final idea for the following poem which tries to explore the meeting of the adult and the child within. 

Well whatever floats your boat as they say! I promise next week to be more light hearted, honestly I will!

 

Simple Silent Din

When you meet your inner child, what does he or she say about you?
Do you laugh together and remember times of joy?
Do you revisit days that posed large dark shadows,
when big people scared you, and he or she, were forced to hide.

When you meet your inner child, is he or she still familiar?
Do you think how far the two of you have come?
Does the child eyes that stare at you from some old photograph,
wonder wisely about the she or he, that adulthood has undone?

Can you reach inside your younger, living, old breathing self,
and rekindle, the his or her arresting spirit nonetheless?
The one that braved the madness they could never fully fathom,
running life so fast, the blinkin' craziness became a quest.

Can you hear the child as they shout right up at you?
To hold on to the dynamo that once you might have been.
To grab life despite it being basked in its own confusion,
winning out, as once he or she, believed they could.

Allow the prospect of another day, be just tomorrow,
to look and find  the things waiting  for you to see.
Remember beauty isn’t found within the pretty,
rather in the difference between you, he and she.

And knowing who it is that your younger child remembers,
like yesterday, earth stones buried deep within.
Waiting to be explored in the annals of your memory,
a forever resting place, for their simple silent din.


Friday, October 22, 2010

Thought for the Weekend - George Bernard Shaw


'Life is no brief candle for me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.'

George Bernard Shaw

Roughly translated means, if you are alive, go for it!


Thursday, October 21, 2010

Strike - Tracy Ryan


Hi all, in case any of you missed this play the first time around, it is well worth seeing. 

Written and directed  by Tracy Ryan, it is based on the story of 11 Dublin strikers who changed world history.

See Below:



STRIKE! the play is back by popular demand at the Samuael Beckett Theatre 26th October  - 6th November 2010.

What the audience said about STRIKE!:

 

“Brilliant show. Very emotional.”

            “It was a terrific production. Brought back many memories and was truly inspirational.”

“Great show, saw it last night! A well deserved standing ovation!”



About STRIKE!
In Dublin in 1984, the economy was failing, unemployment was rife and 10 young women and one young man were about to change the world.  In July a shop worker on Henry Street refused to sell South African fruit to a store customer and was suspended. Ten colleagues followed her out on strike; they thought it would last 2 weeks - it went on for nearly three years.

The play uses visuals and music of the time to tell the story of a group of young people who went on strike to protest against apartheid and confronted the establishment, caused a state of emergency in South Africa and eventually saw the banning of South African produce in Ireland. 

The cast of STRIKE! includes ex - students from UCD's MA Drama and Performance so please support us!

Come and join us - we look forward to seeing you at STRIKE!

Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin
Tuesday 26 October to Saturday 6 Nov. at 7.30 pm
Matinee on Saturday 29 and November 6 at 2.30 pm
Tickets €15.99; €11.99 concession; €9.99 matinee and for group rate of 10
Box office: Book online at
www.tcd.ie/drama or by phone at 01 - 896 2461
 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Seamus Heaney - Blackberry Picking


With the frost that threatened last weekend finally taking hold of the ground this morning, I was relieved to see that the crisp sunshine of October could melt it quickly.

So never one to miss an opportunity, mid morning I took to walking and was surprised to see so many blackberries still opulent on the hedgerows.

I thought of Seamus Heaney's poem 'Blackberry Picking' and how he remembered with sadness the lovely canfuls turning to rot, and was glad that at least this morning they hung with such tempting grandeur.

Anyhow have a listen below:


Blackberry Picking

Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Down By The Elderberry Trees


Down By The Elderberry Trees

I sit by the elderberry trees in the field at the back of our house.
From my window this morning I watched them wave to me.
Now in mid-autumn the cherry-coloured berries are sought by the birds,as they turn black red with the change of season.

It won’t be long before the crisp cold of winter frames us with frost.
Spring bulbs buried low in readiness of life to come.I sit here wrapped up in my coat, scarf and  boots,pen and paper at the ready.

Dry leaves swirl above the soil,rustling change coming from the valley,branches creak against hill tops turned cold grey,a beauty that is lost to words.For how can one capture,the change of season,the turning over of life,the crazy ever changing, ever steadfast wonder.

Down here by the elderberries,I am hidden from the house, I can be alone,
with just the taste and breath of earth and trees,a wondrous continuance of all things.
I look down at my pen and paper,as light moves within the leaves that barely hang on,
writing in a place I have never written before,and I wonder why.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Thought for the Weekend/Life - Nelson Mandela


Well here's a heavy hitting statement if ever there was one.

A close friend of mine sticks good quotations up around her living space, hoping I imagine all the inspiration will turn into positive thinking and actions.

So I give you these words for digesting over the coming weekend, and lifetime!!!



'Vision without action is merely daydreaming.  Action without vision is passing the time.  But vision with action can change the world.'



- Nelson Mandela
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...